Something Upstairs

One year ago, I had a truly strange experience. I was 16 years old at the time and it was a nice, spring day. At about 4:00 PM I got home from school and went into my basement to relax. The entrance to the basement consists of a door on the main floor with a stair case leading to the basement directly on the other side of it. The basement has a tv, couch and carpeting so pretty much acts as a living room for the family. I was down there just hanging out with my dog.

My mom had gone out for a while and no one else was in the house. I was sitting on the couch watching some tv, when all of a sudden I heard what at the time I assumed to be my Mom walking around up stairs. I thought this strange, as I hadn't heard anyone enter the house but I could hear the unmistakable sound of someone walking around. The basement door at the top of the stairs was wide open, so the sound was extremely clear and loud. I could hear the distinct sound of someone walking across the floor. My dog immediately reacted to the sound and perked his ears up curiously. I casually shouted "hey mom". No reply. Whoever was walking around up there continued to do so. At this point, my dog became agitated and ran upstairs. I followed him upstairs and the sound persisted as I walked up. Freakishly, all noise stopped the moment I got to the top of the stairs.

Now that it was absolutely clear my Mom wasn't the one walking around, I became paranoid. My first thought was that someone had broken in and was now hiding. I checked every corner of the house but found nothing. Satisfied but shaken, I went back downstairs with the dog and left the basement door open again. 20 or so minutes passed and boom, the sound of footsteps returned. This time around, my dog began periodically barking in the direction of the stairwell and was clearly afraid and defensive. I have a skeptical nature so I was desperately trying to think of something "natural" that could be causing this disturbing sound. However, the sound was so clearly produced by someone walking around, the only other explanation to its source was that I was having an auditory hallucination. However, the dog clearly heard all of this as well!

I tried to ignore the sound and it mysteriously went on and off with varying intensity over the next hour. At times, it was concentrated in one space like someone was stamping on the ground. I can't stress enough how convinced I am that the sound was produced by footsteps, it was simply so clear and distinct. I didn't go upstairs again as I was admittedly quite shaken but more than anything, annoyed at the almost constant movement upstairs.

Eventually, my mom returned during a quiet interval. I ran upstairs and she immediately said to me, "why have you been spraying cologne all over the place"? I couldn't smell a thing yet she insisted that the house reeked of cologne! I told her the whole story about someone walking around and she brushed it off as me, "just hearing things". It was such a weird experience from start to finish and it makes absolutely no sense to me. I just don't know what to make of it. Definitely not the scariest of experiences, but it was strange. After the conversation with my mom, she had to leave the house again. Not really wanting to go through the whole ordeal again, I took the dog out for a long, long walk and when I returned a few hours later, the sounds did not return.